Lenovo: ‘We are not getting out of the small-screen Windows 8.1 tablet business’

Yesterday, numerous media outlets, including us, ran a story about Lenovo slamming the brakes on sales of small-screen Windows 8.1 tablets. Lenovo was reportedly halting sales due to a lack of consumer interest. This has now been proven to be false, according to a statement we received directly from Lenovo.

The report yesterday stated that Lenovo was no longer selling the ThinkPad 8 and Miix 8 in the US due to a lack of consumer demand. This is not true. A Lenovo spokesperson reached out to WinBeta today to clarify the company’s stance with small-screen Windows tablets.

“We will continue to bring new Windows devices to market across different screen sizes, including a new 8-inch tablet and 10-inch tablet coming this holiday. Our model mix changes as per customer demand, and although we are no longer selling ThinkPad 8 in the U.S., and we have sold out of Miix 8-inch, we are not getting out of the small-screen Windows tablet business as was reported by the media. In short, we will continue to sell both 8 and 10 inch Windows tablets in both the U.S. and non-U.S markets,” said Ray Gorman, Executive Director, External Communications, Lenovo.

So there you have it. Lenovo is not backing out of the small-screen Windows tablet business. In fact, the company plans to roll out new devices this holiday season.

Unveiled back in January of this year, the ThinkPad 8 features an 8-inch 1920×1200 display, a single MicroUSB 3.0 port, and a quad-core Intel Bay Trail processor. It also boasts an 8-megapixel rear camera. The device started at $399 and runs Windows 8.1. The Miix 2, on the other hand, was also unveiled in January of this year. The Miix 2 is powered by a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z3740 CPU, backed up by 2GB LPDDR3 1066 MHz RAM. Running the 32-bit version of Windows 8.1, the device boasts a 8-inch display running at a resolution of 1920×1200.